girlgeniusfandomcom-20200214-history
Forum:What goes on a main subject page
(moved from Talk:Rinja ) Re: Kidneys -- That one's a bit of a stretch. Could we remove that? --mnenyver 21:01, 21 June 2008 (UTC) :Done. :I've been thinking, though: we could use "speculation" pages that mirror the actual content pages for many of the articles. That one might be over the top even for a speculation page, but maybe not. Something like Rinja/Speculation and the obvious parallels on other pages? -- that old bearded guy 21:36, 21 June 2008 (UTC) :: That is a GREAT idea. Maybe I could even set up a namespace for that -- i.e. Spec:Rinja --mnenyver 02:16, 22 June 2008 (UTC) On the one hand, I admit it's a stretch to think that Foglios consciously named Rinja "Renal". If she was consciously named after something, it might well have been this person: Rinja. If I thought about it, I could probably (remembering that great scene from Roxanne) come up with (not 50, say, but how about six) wilder theories. On the other, I stand by its possible relevance, if nothing else, for mnemonic value. To my mind it is a fact that "Rinja" sounds like "renal", and it is someone else that pointed out that Rinja had a pivotal role as Agatha's first Mechanicsburger minion. The gripping hand is, I think you guys are a bit too uptight. I'm all for separating facts from assumptions, and I'm willing to concede that "the canon", a source of distinguished facts, can be well defined, and (for simplicity, if nothing else) the main writeups should generally be limited to them — even if I think the value of such a definition is questionable otherwise. And if there was actually a danger of one of Possibly Relevant Outside Information or Questions and Theories (or the yet-to-be seen List of Fan Works) overwhelming the main writeup on a page, then certainly it would make sense to move it to its own page, because clearly it merits it. But I really like learning about, e.g., Olaf Tryggvason and some of the others which I did not come up with, and I think this kind of thing (Borzoi is a breed of dogs, Haldane said God must love Beetles, etc.) really does belong at the bottom of the page, and not sequestered where another page load is required to retrieve it. I'm not going to participate in an edit war, but I ask you to please reconsider. — Zarchne 06:23, 22 June 2008 (UTC) :Hey, Z. It's not really about "being uptight", it's just a different philosophical approach to wiki editing. Even though this wiki is "just" about a webcomic, I feel we need to be clear about when something is an obvious inspiration, homage, or in-joke, and when it's just "Hey, I noticed something interesting". (This is especially true with this comic, since it's full of these kinds of things.) References to Olaf Tryggvassen and "God must love beetles" definitely belong in the main article -- the connection is clear. Something like "Rinja sounds a little bit like 'renal'" would fall under the latter. A separate page for speculation would just be an easy place to put all these little "something interesting" odds and ends, that's all. (Ideally, I'd like a fourth tab at the top, next to Talk. Though now I'm thinking a clever link to a subheading under talk might work just as well... hmm.) --mnenyver 12:52, 22 June 2008 (UTC) ::Agreed. One thing to keep in mind is that, while it's lots of fun to write this stuff, the real service of a wiki is to those who read it. IMO we do best by sticking to the facts in the main article (which is not to say it has to be dull -- it doesn't), because the reader who comes here for the first time will need some factual information about what's going on in the story. The "advanced" reader can benefit from analyses like yours, Z, and that's a good reason to have them here somewhere, but the KISS principle applies when it comes to conveying the key information. -- that old bearded guy 19:30, 22 June 2008 (UTC) :::Well, I'm having a really hard time wrapping my head around it, but I'm also someone who fails to understand the appeal of splash screens, over having the computer actually tell you what it's doing (and there are many other examples of the limited bounds of my marketing demographic). To my mind, it is a mistake to disconnect a brilliant description/analysis of how Jaegers resemble beagles from the page about Jaegers, and the Discussion/Talk: pages are supposed to be about the page, not the subject. That is, I should be able to get full benefit from the wiki from the links in the pages without going into metadiscussion about the wiki itself, or other disorganized rambling. It just occurred to me to look at the Jaeger talk page and was rather appalled at how interesting the stuff there is and what a mess it's in. I guess another namespace would solve the problem, though, especially if it was linked-to from the main subject page (like I am suggesting more or less specific forum topics be). — Zarchne 21:34, 23 June 2008 (UTC) ::::It might be that you're seeing value in random comments where others are seeing clutter. My take on it is that a wiki page should be presented like an encyclopedia article; neutral, concise, and valuable to an uninformed reader. I put my silly Jäger/Beagles comments over in my user space precisely because they don't belong anywhere else. However, I can see a fun discussion of the similarities between Jägers and hounds on a talk page or whatever solution we come up with. I agree that it would be better to have all random comments on these subjects contained in one place, just not in the main body of an article. (I would come up with more suggestions right now, but I'm rather brain-fried at the moment.) --mnenyver 23:45, 23 June 2008 (UTC) :::::I think the wiki page should be organized, but I think of the wiki (and thus the pages) as a central repository and index for all things related to the subject. Really, as far as I am concerned, the wiki is for the support of the advanced fans, speculating; the beginner should read the books first. There can be more to being a wiki than Wikipedia is; it has breadth of scope, here we can have depth. One of the elements we should certainly have is your "encyclopedia article", but one should also be able to start at "Jägerkin" in some namespace and get the rest, not organized as a discussion but more as a librarian might organize it. Even for Wikipedia, there may be more value in the references to other works than the summary itself. So the alternative namespace... not "Spec:" but maybe "Spark:" ... or maybe just "s:", or maybe "Mad:". — Zarchne 04:08, 24 June 2008 (UTC) ::::::I totally vote for "Mad:". -Acacia 04:59, 24 June 2008 (UTC) ::::::Seconded! That is brilliant. *cackles, runs off to figure out how to do this* --mnenyver 13:57, 24 June 2008 (UTC) :::::::On namespaces: They must be requested. They must also be unique across all Wikia wikis, because of how Wikia's interwiki naming conventions work. So, we can request a namespace OR we can set up some other system. It might be simpler to rename "Fan Theories" to "Mad Theories", for instance, with a clever and highly visible link. (Which reminds me, the forum names still need to be changed, if we have consensus. I'll go look for where we discussed that...) Edit to add: Or, simply articles named "Rinja/Mad", which I believe was Graybeard's original suggestion. D'oh. --mnenyver 14:12, 24 June 2008 (UTC) :::OK, I've set up something in my laboratory amounting to a first step toward a "speculation template." Please critique. Usage is obvious, I think. -- that old bearded guy 04:29, 24 June 2008 (UTC) Mad: now exists, discussion about what goes in that namespace continued at Forum:Mad about you. I have changed my position somewhat. Before I was thinking that the main subject page should have it all, but I acknowledge that it may be the case that "the readership" in the broadest sense should be shielded from a depth of detail, and we can "emulate an encyclopedia" in our main namespace with maximum restraint. It's mad in its own way, and I'm cool with that now. I think the box calling attention to the speculation page is startling and inappropriate. However, if we decide we want to allow pages of speculation, which you Graybeard and Mnenyver previously deemed inappropriate in the main namespace, then I guess we could go forward with that, with the original idea of "/Spec" or "/Speculation". This could be for "restrained" speculation, if you wish, as if "these are the craziest ideas we could think of, and only about this subject and that one". The speculation template would then be self-subverting, and I guess I'm okay with that, too, although the web is getting tangled. (We could even use "/Mad" and then be ambiguous about which "Mad" we were talking about, in case we were overheard.) For nearly all purposes, subpages in the main ns are exactly like any other page in the main ns; they are possible hits for Special:Random and they appear in the Top Content nav box. Therefore, subpages have to be able to stand pretty much on their own; the only difference is that they automatically contain a link to the ancestor page(s) at the top. Wikipedia actually bans subpages in their main namespace. I think they could be appropriate for long articles like Chronology, but otherwise, if we're emulating wikipedia, we should consider those guidelines. (Unless, again, we allow pages of mild speculation as a red herring.) If you haven't seen what I've done with Mad:The Madness Place, well, gird your loins; it's a regular Frankenstein's monster. I'm going to feel free to go ahead with such abominations, maybe even subpages that don't stand on their own, and whatever other horrors I can think up. Intended for public consumption... or vice versa... if they stumble across them. But follow up on that in the Forum:Mad about you.; continue here with propriety. — Zarchne 17:33, 25 June 2008 (UTC) :Just putting a note here that since we seemed to come to a consensus about what will go on a main page and what will go an another page, my future replies will be in the other topic (Forum:Mad about you.) regarding the Mad: namespace. --mnenyver 19:07, 25 June 2008 (UTC)